


a love that won't sit still

by pageleaf



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: 5+1 Things, Backstory, Childhood, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pageleaf/pseuds/pageleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times the Thief's daughter stole something from the youngest prince of Eddis, and one time he stole something from her.</p><p>(Or, Gen's mother and father through the years.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a love that won't sit still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/gifts).



> for Prinzenhasserin's prompt asking for fic about Gen's Mother, maybe about how she and the Minister of the War came to be married. thank you for the lovely bit of inspiration, and I hope you enjoy it!!

**two** and **four**

At the age of two and not yet out of the nursery, the youngest prince of Eddis was a quiet creature, but a curious one. He was often found toddling between the legs of his older relatives, when he wasn’t clutching at his older brother the crown prince’s hand, but he was always staring wide-eyed at the world around him. Occasionally, his father (when the temperament of a father outshined that of a king) could be seen to swoop him up in his arms and hold him on his lap.

Today, he was playing in a corner of the royal chambers while his father met with the Thief. He watched, wide-eyed as ever, as the King and the Thief yelled at each other without raising their voices (a skill that seemed specific to adults). Everyone else had their eyes averted with respect, or discomfort. Thus, the young prince was the only one who noticed when his father’s ring—not his seal, but a sapphire ring nearly as old—skittered off the tabletop with a particularly vehement slam of the King’s glass tumbler.

Its gem sparkled delightfully, and the young prince, who had never seen it up close, dropped his toy and picked it up. He contemplated it in silence for a moment, before picking it up and (as small children are wont to do) solemnly putting it in his mouth.

—or he would have, except suddenly a young voice piped, “You shouldn’t.”

He turned his wide eyes on the girl kneeling next to him. “No?” he asked. Where had she come from?

“No,” she repeated. “Rings don’t taste good. Babies shouldn’t eat them.” She held out her hand, palm up.

“Not a baby,” he said mildly, but dutifully dropped the ring in her palm.

The girl smiled at him, patting his cheek, and the prince, dazzled, grinned toothily back.

Later, after the Thief had left, the King called for his chief attendant. “Have you seen my ring?”

“The sapphire?”

“Yes—I think that bastard Thief stole it.”

The young prince thought about saying something, but touched his cheek and decided not to.

 

 **eight** and **nine**

The prince, only slightly less young, was about to have his first lesson in swordplay, and he was panicking.

It wasn't that he was nervous for his lesson. He was a prince of Eddis, after all. It was a given that he would be good with his sword—if only he could find it. He had just set it down to lace up his boots, but now he _couldn’t find it_ and how could he learn the sword if there was no sword—

“Sorry,” the Thief’s daughter said, appearing in front of him as if by magic. He shouldn’t have been able to remember her face (he hadn’t seen her since that first time), but still he recognized her immediately.

She held out his sword. He blinked.

“What?”

“I took it,” she said. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”

He stared at her, and she shuffled her feet a little. “It’s in my blood!” she said, finally. “But, well. You looked pretty panicked about it, so—”

“I wasn’t!” the prince finally recovered enough to say.

The Thief’s daughter eyed him like she didn’t quite believe him but was feeling too kind to say so. “Anyway, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “But please give it back.” Wordlessly, she handed it to him. “And don’t steal any more of my things, please.”

She grinned brightly, sang, “I can’t make any promises!” and ran off.

 

 **thirteen** and **fourteen**

Historically, the King of Eddis gave a ring to each of his children when they came of age, except the crown prince, who was expected to one day wear the King’s seal instead. Today was the youngest prince’s birthday, and his father gifted him with a heavy gold ring inset with an emerald. It was an honor, of course, and the prince was honored. And the ring was pretty enough, he supposed, but...

“It’s too big,” he whispered to himself, contemplating the ring in the palm of his hand.

“So? Wear it on your thumb.”

He jumped, but it was only the Thief’s daughter. She was taller than him, still, so he had to look up.

She continued: “Or on a chain, if it won’t fit on your thumb.”

“It’s not that,” the prince said.

“Then what?”

“...it’s nothing.”

“ _What_?”

“Nothing, it’s stupid, I shouldn’t even complain.”

The Thief’s daughter was earning fame for her thievery, to the point where some were beginning to call her Queen Thief. She looked every bit the queen, then (even though the prince was the one with royal blood) when she stared him down. “Tell me.”

He sighed. “It’s too heavy. It’s good for a king, maybe even for a prince. But it’s nothing a soldier should wear.”

“Do you want to be a soldier?” she asked, and the prince realized that he had never told anyone that before.

“Yes,” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “Then we’ll figure something out.”

The next morning, the emerald ring was gone from the chain around his neck, and in its place was his father’s sapphire ring, slim and sparkling as it was on the day it had disappeared a decade ago.

 

 **sixteen** and **seventeen**

“You’re bleeding,” the prince said, determinedly not panicking. “Lie down.”

“I’m fine,” the Thief’s daughter said, struggling up onto her elbows. “The assassins—”

“No longer a concern,” he said firmly. “You killed one, and I knocked out the other.”

“Should have killed him,” she said, finally relaxing onto her back.

“I had more important things to worry about,” the prince said, carefully tying off the bandage around the knife wound on her arm.

“What am I lying on?” she asked absently.

He huffed out a laugh. “Did you not notice that I was shirtless?”

She looked at his bare chest consideringly and made a noise. It was...not disapproving, and something flared into existence in the prince’s chest. He covered his blush by turning to her wound again.

 

 **eighteen** and **twenty**

“You’re not going,” the Queen Thief ordered, voice flat.

“You can’t stop me,” the prince said, throwing his saddle over his horse. “Sounis is pressing in on our border, and the King is sending more men as reinforcements. They need a commander, and that is what I’ve been training for.”

She stood in his way as he reached for his armor. “I can stop you, and I will. You’re not ready.”

He blinked at her. “Of course I am.” She looked up at him, fire in her eyes, and he realized with a jolt that he was taller than her, now, by quite a bit. When had that happened?

“Why are you angry?” he asked. “You knew this was my plan.”

“You’re not ready,” she said. “If you were, you would have noticed by now that your sword is missing.”

He felt immediately at his side, and saw that she was right. “You stole it.”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“Beyond your reach.”

He stared at her until she looked away. “I dedicated it. It’s on Hephestia’s altar now. You can’t take it back.”

She was right. He couldn’t. His father had given him that sword, and it had never been used in battle—never would be, now.

Slowly, he unclenched fists he hadn’t realized he had clenched. “I’m going,” he said. “There are other swords.”

She turned her back, and he led his horse to where his men awaited.

 

 **nineteen** and **twenty**

“So you’re back,” the Thief’s daughter said from her bed, eyes still closed.

The prince startled. “Yes. I arrived an hour ago.”

“And snuck into my bedchamber first thing?”

He shrugged. “I thought you might like to know I was unharmed.”

She sighed, and turned over, pulling the blankets over her head. “Well, now I know.” It was as clear a dismissal as could be conveyed.

He didn’t leave.

Instead, he sat at the foot of her bed and laid down on his back. “I turned nineteen while I was away. My father thinks that it’s time for me to marry.”

The blankets stirred, and the prince couldn’t help but think of a sullen child. He stifled a laugh.

“He has his advisers looking for a suitable bride,” he continued. “A cousin, maybe.”

“Go away,” she said harshly.

He bit his lip against a smile. “No.”

The blankets were thrown off unceremoniously, covering half his face. The Thief’s daughter leapt out of bed gracelessly, and said, “Well if you won’t leave, I will!”

The prince waited.

“...where are my boots.”

He did laugh, now, pulling the blankets away and sitting up. “On Eugenides’s altar. Good luck trying to get them back.”

She threw a book at him, and it missed by nearly a foot. “What do you want?”

The prince looked over his own shoulder at the book open on the floor. If she had truly been aiming, it would have hit him squarely in the head.

He looked her directly in the eyes. “Marry me.”

She opened her mouth, probably to refuse, but choked on her breath when she saw what was in his hand. “I—”

“Please,” he said, because pretty speeches weren’t his forte (and because they wouldn’t work on the Queen Thief, anyway).

“I don’t—” she said, but she was already holding out her hand, palm up.

The prince smiled, and dropped the sapphire ring in her palm.


End file.
